William Herbert Dalton (1848-1929), Essex geologist
W.H. George 11 Sterry Road, Barking, Essex IG11 9SJ
A few weeks ago I visited Foulness with the Barking Historical Society. In the church
graveyard, near the porch, we saw the prominent gravestone of Samuel Neale Dalton
(1813-1892), who was rector here for 43 years from 1848 until his death in 1892. This
reminded me of his geologist son William Herbert Dalton. Later, at home, I dusted off
my file on Dalton and compiled the following account of Dalton and his important
contribution to Essex Geology, which, may be of some interest to members of the Essex
Field Club.
Family Matters
W.H. Dalton was bom into a comfortable but by no means privileged family at the
Rectory, Foulness on 16"' July 1848, the son of the Rector Samuel Neale Dalton and
Sophia Way who had married in 1840. He was baptised nearly a month later on 13Ih
August. His father, S. N. Dalton, was described as "a man of primitive and retiring
manners... content with his lot in this lonely spot" (Benton 1867 p. 210). The 1851
census recorded the Dalton Family at the Rectory on Foulness with 3 servants (HO 107/
1777 folio 552 rev. page 19). W. H. Dalton married Maggie Miller on 28"' December
1869 at Greenhead, Glasgow. He had met her in Keighley, where he had walked to buy
some drawing instruments. She was 31 he was not yet 21 and she had not yet met his
family. They lived at 10 Frederick Street, Grays Inn Road, London. Their only child
Frances Edith Dalton was born on 24"' February 1871 at Barnsley. Details of her life and
family are given in her history of the Dalton family (Leaning 1951 pp 612-613). His
first wife died on 12"' December 1911 aged 74. Dalton then married Amelia Everard
who died in 1925. Finally he married Emily Gertrude Warren, who survived Dalton and
died in 1946.
Education
W. H. Dalton was educated with his brother, Henry, at Blackheath. In the 1861 census he
was listed as a scholar lodging in Tunbridge Weils (RG 9/492 folio 5 rev. page 4 schedule
20). Letters sent home in the early 1860s by William, transcribed by Leaning (1951 pp.
482-485), clearly show his fascination with natural history, especially geology. In fact
he sometimes managed to substitute games lessons for fossil hunting. He even asked his
mother for permission to spend an Easter vacation with a school friend to collect fossils
at Woolwich. Dalton also wrote to his mother seeking career advice. He stated "If I go to
college and happen to be elected a fellow with an income of £300 per annum till I
married I should do nothing so to speak, that is to go on tours fossil-hunting and
geologising and in my will bequeath my collection to some public museum". He spent
the rest of the letter relating a disagreement he had with his brother William about a
geological hammer while fossil collecting.
Essex Field Club Newsletter No. 51, September 2006 15